


Do Not Allow Me to Forget You

by octobergryphon



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, WinterShieldShock - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-12 21:59:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7124032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octobergryphon/pseuds/octobergryphon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Memorial Day is as much for the quick as it is for the dead. Steve, Bucky, Darcy, Sam, Clint, and Natasha remember.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do Not Allow Me to Forget You

**Author's Note:**

> The Sunday before Memorial Day every year in the US, the Rolling Thunder bike rally rides to the Pentagon parking lot, and moves en masse to the Vietnam Memorial, in what is called the Ride of Freedom. These men and women ride for the MIA/POWs, and for the men and women who have fallen in combat. 
> 
> (This is also a snippet from an upcoming series, collaborating with goddessvicky)

The world had calmed down enough that Steve, Bucky and Darcy were in the US, Ashville, North Carolina to be exact, to visit her family. They’d had no other plans, really, then maybe riding through the mountains and attending the family bar-be-que.

It was unexpected, then, to hear the noise of more motorcycles running up the gravel drive to Darcy’s parents’ house.

Steve and Bucky had been settling on the porch with Darcy’s father to drink cold beers, and Darcy was chasing her niece around the yard with a water gun, spraying her down with cold water, and laughing freely when sprayed in return. 

All four of the adults' heads snapped up when they heard the engines, Bucky and Steve just before everyone else. Darcy stopped her play, squinting down the drive at the bikes and riders before dropping her Super Soaker and letting out a loud whoop of excitement while bounding towards the drive.

“You didn’t tell me you were coming,” she exclaimed at Clint as he pulled of his helmet with a too pleased grin. She held out her arms for a hug, fingers waggling. Clint wrapped her up, arms coming around Darcy, laughing when she eeped as he pulled her up. 

The other two riders were chucking as well. Steve and Bucky were making their way down the steps of the porch, postures having shifted from wary defense to warm and welcoming. Darcy’s father was moving his way into the house, screen door slapping, to let his wife know there was going to be more for dinner.

Sam pulled Steve into a huge bear hug, pounding the man on the back with one hand. 

“Good to see you in the flesh, man,” Sam said, pulling back from Steve, taking a good look at him. “Even if it’s the furry flesh. Are you going mountain man on us?”

Bucky had moved to Natasha, and they were speaking quietly in Russian, and by the look on her face, Bucky was teasing her for something. The smack on his right arm confirmed it.

“What’re you doing here?” Steve asked. “Not that we’re not happy to see you, but…”

He was still a bit wary. They had let Clint and Natasha know that they were coming back to the States, Darcy having not been back in some time. But, it had been in their personal code, and encrypted. While it was much safer for them to be in the States, they were still not completely the epitome of wanted citizens.

“To quote a great movie,” Clint started, smile pulling up one side of his face. “Get in bitches, we’re going riding!”

Natasha groaned and rolled her eyes, shrugging off her jacket and laying it over the seat of her bike. She smoothly elbowed Clint in the side as she moved to Steve to receive her hug. “Stop quoting _Mean Girls_ all the time. Stop trying to make it happen.”

“Rolling Thunder,” Sam added in at the confused look on Darcy, Steve, and Bucky’s faces.

“What the hell is Rolling Thunder?” Bucky asked.

*~*~*

He had seen Rolling Thunder of course. It was kind of hard to miss, living in DC during Memorial Day weekend. Hundreds of thousands of men and women riding to remember the fallen and the missing in action. Steve had just never ridden in it before.

He’d loved being on motorcycles ever since he was supposed to be lifting them while on bond tours in the Forties. Insisting on being able to ride the damn thing, he’d practiced riding in secret, having found one of the camera men to teach him after the day was over and between takes. Steve kept up with it on the road and was usually what he was on when taking out HYDRA bases in Europe with the Howling Commandos. 

It was one of the very few familiar things still the same after having come out of the Arctic. Tony had been able to find him a restored version of the bike he had ridden in Europe at first, but Steve loved the new conveniences of modern bikes, not to mention the seats were way more comfortable.

*~*~*

Darcy owned a cheery green Vespa when Steve and Bucky had come into her life. She didn’t need a car, living in the Mediterranean climate, but she was not trying to ride a bicycle through the traffic in the busy city.

Seeing both Bucky and Steve on motorcycles was more than enough to convince her to ride on the back of one, and then move to riding one on her own. Too many wonderful memories of the three of them winding in the towns and cities of her new home. She’d come to love the company as much as riding the bike itself.

*~*~*

Bucky hated closed in spaces. It hadn’t been a problem _before_ , but after, the clearer he could keep his sight lines and feel the air and weather around him the better. Motorcycles were the clear choice of transportation most of the time. Maneuverable, lightweight, and easy, and he wasn’t responsible for passengers if he needed to bug out.

Besides, seeing Steve and Darcy on bikes was something he just couldn’t help but indulge.

*~*~*

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Bucky asked, looking at the others as they said their good-byes to Darcy’s parents.

Natasha just raised one red eyebrow at him before pulling on her helmet and shifting to kick her bike on. 

“It’ll be fine, _zvezda moya_. You worry, too much, old man.”

*~*~*

The roads through the mountains and rural Virginia were beautiful, if not hot. They started to see other motorcyclists, in small and larger groups as they continued to head towards DC. Bucky and Steve were on high alert, worried that they were going to be recognized. They didn’t want to chance getting caught, but sitting around the fire with their friends and lover had struck a chord in both men. The Howling Commandos were dead, but other men had died helping them take down HYRDA, and Bucky had been friends with many of the men in the 107th taken in and experimented on by Zola.

Around Richmond, they began to settle into wary watching, minds turning inward to memory.

Steve had long ago grown a beard, which did a lot to change the way he looked, softening the Chin of Captain America. His hair had darkened to almost brown, and some days he still didn’t recognize himself in the mirror. Bucky had cut his hair from the tangled mess of hiding in Romania, based on Darcy’s recommendations, and as cliche as it was, wearing a hat and sunglasses did a lot to keep eyes moving over his face. So did the close shave with the straight razor more than once every decade. Clint and Natasha had been trained to blend into any kind of crowd, to insert themselves seamlessly in high social circles, with presidents and dictators.

Sam had already made reservations at a hotel just outside of DC, confident that there would be six of them, but still close enough that they were able to join the huge parade of men and women winding their way into DC. Men and women nodded at them, and in the middle of motorcycles and leather, they were just six more people riding to commemorate those men and women who had fallen in the protection and defense of the country.

*~*~*

It was eerily silent in the parking lot of the Pentagon, people breathing and the hot air moving, but no sounds coming from the machines.

Darcy thought of her older brother Isaac, killed by an IED in Afghanistan in 2008. She missed his warm brown eyes, the funny way he snorted when he laughed too hard, and how he tugged at her hair when she was being too serious. He had been her champion, the one who encouraged her to study whatever she wanted, and listened when people were wrong on tumblr.

Clint thought of the men in his unit. The ones he had sweated with, laughed with, watched from afar as he protected their backs. He touched the worn dog tags around his neck, naming each of the men he had failed to protect and renewing his promise to do better, be better.

Natasha thought of her adopted country, the red in her ledger. 

Sam remembered the way Riley laughed over the comms, giving him shit when he landed less than perfectly. He remembered the helplessness of watching Riley fall, and that laugh being cut short.

Steve, fingering the rosary he always had in his pocket, and Bucky, worrying his mother’s hair comb, thought of the men in 107th, Joseph Rogers, the unknowns.

All at once, the engines roared like a dragon screaming its defiance, screaming _Thank you, you are not forgotten._


End file.
